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Indictment Says Nonprofit Was Founded with Millions in Fraud Loot [Updated]

Alan Fabian is charged with using some of the $32 million gains from a phony computer leasing scheme to start the Centre for Management and Technology, a high-profile Baltimore organization using technology to help nonprofits. (But the Daily Kos may have it wrong: he's not necessarily the same guy listed as a supporter of a certain GOP presidential candidate.) And the Mitt Romney campaign confirms that he's resigned as co-chair of his national fundraising committee.

The Baltimore Sun (Sindya N. Bhanoo) and AP (Ben Green) report that Federal prosecutors have charged Alan Brian Fabian, founder of the Centre for Management and Technology (EIN 54-2090751 Form 990) with a phony computer leasing scheme that siphoned $32 million from his employer Maximus, Inc., a leasing company, and various financial institutions (Sun story, AP story from Forbes.com). The indictment claims that $3.9 million of the funds went to founding of the Centre (the organization uses the Canadian/UK spelling, which makes it harder to find them in the Guidestar and Foundation Center listings—but doesn't fool WMN).

The Form 990 for CMAT shows that the organization paid Mr. Fabian $375,000 a year in 2005. The organization's 2005 Annual Report (deleted from the CMAT web site, but available through the Google cache) reveals that the organization paid over $14,000 a month for its office space in the Power Plant in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

CMAT has a number of programs that provide various sorts of high-tech help for nonprofit organizations. Just two weeks ago a Sun columnist (Laura Vozella) mentioned that Mr. Fabian was at the opening of one of the CMAT-funded computer labs at the Union Baptist Church in Baltimore's Marble Hill neighborhood, where he confessed (the word used in the column) to being a Republican.

Despite that, the blog item by MissLaura in the Daily Kos that identifies Mr. Fabian as a pioneer supporter of Mitt Romney may not be correcthas been confirmed by the Mitt Romney campaign in response to a reporter from the Boston Herald (O'Ryan Johnson). They have returned Mr. Fabian's $2,300 donation (only $2,300?!) and he has resigned as co-chair of the national finance committee.

I've never heard of a Southwest Medical Center in Maryland (and I live here). But a little checking turns up the fact that there was an Alan J. Fabian who was Chief Operating Officer of Southwest Medical Center in Lafayette, Louisiana, and who is now the CEO of Dauterive Hospital in New Iberia, part of the HCA for-profit hospital chain. Either Alan J. or Alan B. is a plausible candidate as a supporter of Mitt Romney, so it's a little premature for a positive identification that the indicted charity founder is also a Romney supporter. Since the civil legal actions against Mr. Fabian for the leasing schemes go back to at least July of 2004 I question whether the Baltimore Mr. Fabian would be contributing to the 2008 Presidential campaign, but anything is possible. [And now I am glad I hedged that bet, as Mr. Fabian did indeed take on this additional job knowing that he was already enmeshed in civil litigation claiming serious fraud.]